Listening for Lucca (12 page)

I scribbled,
At the beach
—S across the bottom of Mom’s note and left it on the counter.

On the beach, I sat down in a meditating pose and tried to sense if I felt the spirit-feeling out there. I did, kind of. But only near our own section. I spent ages wandering farther down the beach, where it felt normal: lonely, and windy, but not like I had extra company.

Why was it that Mom and Dad didn’t seem to feel the extra presences? Was it just a kid thing—because Sarah the Ghost was a kid? But not Joshua. He went off to war.

By this time, I had wandered down to Mrs. Lang’s house. I knocked on her door.

“Hi, Siena!” she greeted me. “I was just sorting some old clothing to give away. But it might be a good time for a break.”

She shuffled down the hallway and got the Uno cards. Before she had even dealt them, she said, “I got a chance to visit Ella Mae.”

“And?”

“She said that the owner hasn’t lived in the house for a long time, over half a century, that the house has mostly been rented out. But before that, back in the forties, when Ella Mae was young, a family lived there. She didn’t know them personally, but she knew of them because they were kind of a strange family. There were two children: a boy, who went off to the war and then came back unwell, and a girl, who wouldn’t ever talk. The mother and father in turn shut off to most of the world. Rumors spread that the whole family was mentally ill.”

My heart started pounding. The boy who’d gone off to war and the girl who was his sister were in my visions—that was scary enough to think of—but it didn’t quite match.… If what Mrs. Lang was telling me was true, Joshua had made it back and Sarah …

“They were all mentally ill? The girl didn’t talk?”

“Those were rumors. But there was something about them, something unstable or odd.”

I felt sick. Could Sarah be the girl who didn’t talk? She talked in my version of the story so far; what had happened?

But wait a minute …

Let’s say she didn’t talk … and there was something weird in the family and several of them didn’t talk much … and we had moved here because Lucca didn’t talk … that was just … all twisted up and scary. Maybe we didn’t belong here at all. Maybe we belonged as far from here as possible.

“I have to go!” I said, pushing back from the table and standing up.

“We haven’t even started yet,” Mrs. Lang said, surprised.

“I’m sorry.… I’ll come back soon!” I ran out the door and all the way home. The sand under my feet said
Shouldn’t, shouldn’t
.

We
shouldn’t
be here,
shouldn’t, shouldn’t
.

I found Mom on the porch, using a paint peeler and sandpaper to get the old paint off the railings.

“Why did you pick this house?” I blurted out, not even bothering to catch my breath.

“What?” she asked, startled.

“Why did you pick this house?”

“Repainting isn’t going to be so bad, Siena.”

“I’m not talking about painting. I don’t care about painting. I want to know why we came here—
here
, to
this
house.”

Mom seemed to think this was more of my bizarre, over-analyzing behavior. She calmly explained as she continued peeling paint, “We already told you. We looked at a lot of houses. This one reminded us of the one you’d talked about and … I don’t know, maybe because of that, I liked the feeling here. It just felt right. It felt like something here would help Lucca. Or maybe it was the beach. Something about the beach would help Lucca.”

“Something here would help Lucca?”

“Yeah, I think so. Just a feeling I had. Still have, actually.”

Her steady voice calmed my thumping heart. But still …

“What if it isn’t to help him? What if it’s a trap … what if there’s something wrong here?” What if I had dreamed it up for the wrong reasons? For reasons that would hurt us? What if a bad spirit had pulled us here?

“Siena, there’s nothing wrong here. You always think there’s something wrong
everywhere
. Hey, here …” She turned to a box of supplies and fished out another paint scraper. “It might calm you down to help me. Make some improvements. Not think too much about … whatever it is.”

I took the scraper and began to work on my own section of the railings. She was right, it did calm me down. About twenty minutes later, she asked, “Setting your panic attack aside, do you like it here, Siena? I mean, for you?”

“I think it’s great here. For me.”

“I’m so glad. There was always a chance it would end up being harder for you, starting over.”

“No, I like it.”

“Your brother—that’s hard on you, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “I love Lucca.” I felt a squirm of guilt in my stomach. “Maybe I’m not always the
nicest
sister to him.” In fact, yesterday I’d been downright horrible.

“Nobody’s perfect one hundred percent of the time. Usually you’re very good with him.”

Mom’s so contradictory sometimes. Like she was mad
about us fighting yesterday, but now it sounded like not such a big deal.

And she’s so funny, too, because sometimes she acts like I’m nutso for worrying about some things and other times she totally gets it.

We both went back to scraping.

Finally I said, “It’s just that it’s so easy for something to turn out different than you expected.” I
had
expected that Lucca and I would get along great, that he would get me in a way my parents didn’t. And in a lot of ways he did, but then …

“That is kind of scary,” Mom said. “But it’s also the kind of thing where you get to show how strong you are.”

“I’m not, though. I’m all mush inside.”

“No. It would be so easy for you to get frustrated with a brother like Lucca, one who needs a lot of extra attention.”

“He’s just a little boy. I know he needs help. And love.” Even if I didn’t always show it.

“He does. You are very wise to see that.”

I took a deep breath. “I sometimes wonder if he doesn’t talk because he doesn’t like us.”

“You know … I wonder that sometimes, too, when I think of the long list of whys; I can’t help it. But think of how he sneaks into our beds to cuddle, or how he reaches up to hold our hands, or how he laughs when we play with him. He wouldn’t do those things if he didn’t like us.”

“That’s true. Then what is it?” Was it my fault?

“It’s a mystery,” Mom answered. “But one day, it might just disappear. You just need to hang on and believe it will. That’s what I’m doing.”

Again, Mom is funny. She tries and she tries and she tries and then she says when it comes down to it, she’s just hanging on.

I was in the kitchen chopping up veggies from the farmers’ market when the house phone rang.

“I’ll get it!” I yelled. It was kind of exciting to have the phone ring. So far it had only rung twice, when Grandma called.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Is this Siena?”

“Yes.”

“It’s me. Sam.”

“Oh, hi!”

Sam. I don’t know who I’d been expecting.

He was so funny: just showed up when he felt like it, just called at dinnertime. Wacko.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Just called to say hi. What are you doing?”

“Helping make dinner.” I headed back over to the counter and the cutting board. “How’d you get our number?
I
don’t even know this number.”

“It was on your fridge. With a note that said ‘Learn this number: our new house phone.’ ”

At first I thought he was joking, but when I turned to look at the fridge, he was absolutely right; the note was there, in Dad’s handwriting.

“And you memorized it?”

“Well, I only had to remember the last four digits. The others are the same as everyone else’s in town.”

“Is that Sam?” Mom asked. “Let me talk to him after.”

I gave her a look like
she
had ten heads.

“Just really quick. When you’re done.”

I nodded at her and turned away.

“What did you do today?” I asked him.

“Morgan and I went tubing.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, it was fun! You should come next time.”

“Maybe I will.” Maybe. If I was actually invited. “Where do you go?”

“There’s a good river about twenty minutes away. My uncle drops us off a few miles up and then meets us at the end where the river dumps into the ocean.”

“Do you worry about getting pulled out to sea?”

Sam laughed. “No. Should I?”

No, that was me. I was the worrywart, about everything.

“Oh—my mom wants to talk to you.”

“She does? What for?”

“No idea.”

I handed over the phone.

“Hi, Sam. Yes, I’m fine, how are you? I was wondering if you would be interested in coming over to play with Lucca and I’ll pay you. It will be kind of like babysitting, except we’ll be around most of the time. He seemed to like you and I think having a boy around might be good for him. We could make it a regular thing.”

My mouth dropped open. What was she
doing
?

“Yeah, okay … so twice a week? That sounds good for us. Okay, see you then.”

She hung up.

“Mom!”

“What?” she asked innocently.

“You’re asking him to work here?”

“Well, not exactly. I’m asking him to play with your brother.”

“Mom!”

“Chill out. Didn’t you think he played nicely with Lucca?”

“Yes, but—”

“And Lucca liked him. There’s a chance he’ll warm up to him some more.…”

“Yes, but—” She had just been talking about how she was waiting out this thing with Lucca. Yeah, right! She did nothing but try to get him to talk!

“And look at it this way.” Mom gave me a goofy smile. “I’ve just ensured he’ll be coming back here. So he’ll be around to spend more time with you, too.”

“That doesn’t— You hardly— You didn’t even—
Agh!
” I stormed out of the kitchen.

But …

Infuriating as Mom was, it would be nice to have Sam around.

In the morning I was pacing in my room, then I paced up and down the stairs, then I paced around and around the circle made by the connecting hallways of the downstairs rooms. I was thinking, thinking.… If it was true, what Mrs. Lang had said … then it meant … No, it didn’t.… Twice I sat down in the window seat and picked up the pen, but twice the thought of continuing the story, no matter what I could learn, made me put the pen back down and return to pacing.

“You need something to do! Here.” Mom thrust twenty dollars and a shopping list at me. “Go into town. Nielly’s has great produce.”

“I— But—”

“Nope, not listening. Get out of here.”

I couldn’t even explain that that was Sam’s family’s place. I wondered if Mom already knew. That would so be like her, to send me there
because
she knew.

I found myself pushed onto the front porch, clutching a pair of sneakers I hadn’t picked up, with the door shut behind me.

Well, horribly embarrassing as it was, I would have to see him again soon enough anyway. Might as well get it over with.

I groaned and sat down to put the shoes on.

“You didn’t give me any socks!” I called at the house.

A minute later the door opened, a pair of socks flew through it, and it slammed shut again.

Maybe Sam wasn’t working today.

I trudged into town and up the steps of Nielly’s.

Morgan was at a table reading a magazine (didn’t she have anything else to do?), and Sam was leaning on his elbow at one of the registers.

“Hi,” I said in a dull tone.

“Hi,” he replied in the same tone, imitating me.

Then we both stood there. Morgan’s magazine clunked against the table as she set it down.

Sam smiled slyly and said, “So, I’m coming to your house tomorrow for a playdate.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I couldn’t believe she asked you to do that. So annoying. I’m really sorry.”

“Why? It’s totally cool. Easy job. I’ll get some more money and then we can go to the movies on the weekend or eat junk at the diner. Maybe your mom will invite me to stay to eat again.”

“Again?” Morgan chimed in. “I didn’t know you’d eaten there before.” She came over.

Sam and I both ignored her interruption.

“It’s just a plot, you know,” I said. “She wants you to get my brother to talk. Or at least help him socialize.”

“Who cares why? That would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it? If he started to talk?”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s the problem?”

I felt my cheeks get hot as I realized the problem: Mom was also trying to help
me
socialize by having Sam come over on a regular basis.

“What are you guys
talking
about?” Morgan asked.

“Nothing. Siena’s little brother has no brothers, so I’m going over to play and be like … a brother.”

He didn’t add that Lucca was different.

“You’re really okay with it?” I asked.

“Totally. So super, completely, definitely, A-okay.”

“Then I guess I am, too.”

“Good.”

“Is that why you came by?” Sam asked.

“No. This was
also
my mom’s idea.” I took the shopping list out of my pocket and unfolded it. “Leafy lettuce. Two beefsteak tomatoes. One white or yellow onion.”